From what would we learn more about human life or personality, a novel or scientific psychology?

Question

please help. very urgent question.

Answer 1

I agree with those who say you can learn from both, but I would give the edge to scientific psychology. The reason is that novels give examples of human behavior ... and not even real ones at that. Although novelists often try to reveal universal truths, there's no way to say when they've succeeded or not. Scientific psychology is designed to produce empirically supported generalities about human behavior. For example, while a novelist might write a book about two opposite personalities attracting each other, leading us to believe that "opposites attract," psychologists have shown empirically that there is actually a tendency for *similar* personalities to attract each other. In other words, the method for determining whether a particular conclusion really is true or not is _built into_ the scientific approach (but not the literary one).

Answer 2

A novel and Scientific psychology are good places to start. A novel shows how a personality develops and forms, however if you're looking for WHAT creates the personality, and WHY it develps that way, you might want to go into Scientific Psychology. Using both, a novel and scientific psychology , might gain you more insight on how people's personalities are formed, and you can tell why they are that way.

Answer 3

I would say it depends on the novel, but there is definitely alot to be learned from novels. I would ask why you narrowed this down to a novel or scientific psychology? Was this a homework question or something?

Personally i think we would learn more from watching classic movies. I did.

Answer 4

History.

Answer 5

The dualistic comparison is to no value here. Both have a value that can not be traded in nor traded for each other. One teaches you how to or what to observe in human life and the other tells you what someone else has learned about human life. One you will study now to learn and the other you will write someday yourself about what you have learned (of course according to your individual point of view).

Answer 6

I guess it depends. A book could be pretty insightful but psychology is science and who can argue with that. (okay I know a lot of people argue in the sciences but whateverrrrrrrrrr)